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Handicap   Listen
noun
handicap  n.  
1.
An allowance of a certain amount of time or distance in starting, granted in a race to the competitor possessing inferior advantages; or an additional weight or other hindrance imposed upon the one possessing superior advantages, in order to equalize, as much as possible, the chances of success; as, the handicap was five seconds, or ten pounds, and the like.
2.
A race, for horses or men, or any contest of agility, strength, or skill, in which there is an allowance of time, distance, weight, or other advantage, to equalize the chances of the competitors.
3.
An old game at cards. (Obs.)
4.
A physical or mental disability of the body which makes normal human activities more difficult or impossible; as, his deformed leg was a major handicap in walking.
5.
Any disadvantage that makes an activity more difficult or impossible; as, insufficient capital was a big handicap in competing against Microsoft.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Handicap" Quotes from Famous Books



... morning paper as I left the train for the golf club. It contained the interesting news that the Parliamentary Golf Handicap had been postponed lest fiery politicians should run amok with their clubs. I sighed, for the spectacle of BONAR v. BOGEY (The CHANCELLOR) would have beaten the MITCHELL-CARPENTIER fight. Then it came home to me that I, a golfer, a citizen, a voter, was taking no part in the great ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various

... the gathering head of steam, With warning cough and threatening wheeze The stiff old charger crooks his knees; At first with cautious step sedate, As if he dragged a coach of state; He's not a colt; he knows full well That time is weight and sure to tell; No horse so sturdy but he fears The handicap of twenty years. ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... boy of to-day, so hungry for an education that he would walk nine miles a day to attend a rude frontier school in a log cabin! What would the city boys of to-day, who do not want to walk even a few blocks to school, think of a youth who would do what Lincoln did to overcome his handicap? ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... should do so now if it were not that the British accounts differ among themselves, and whenever they relate to the Americans, are flatly contradicted by the affidavits of the latter's officers. The British first handicap themselves by the statement that the surgeon of the Constitution was an Irishman and lately an assistant surgeon in the British navy ("Naval Chronicle," xxix, 452); which draws from Surgeon Amos A. Evans a solemn statement in the Boston Gazette ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... one hundred and fifty feet, where it swayed about with the pleasant face of Stephenson looking over the edge of the basket. He had to sit down, as there was not room to stand. The ascension seemed a failure with the handicap of two hundred and thirty pounds, and so the balloon was reeled down to the earth again. It was not a great ascension, but the amateur aeronaut had gained the distinction of making the first balloon ascension ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... that terrible night. It had passed, and with it much of his pain, and he would have gone to Ascalon for his reckoning with the men from the Nueces two days ago if Stilwell had not argued the folly of attempting an adjustment under the handicap of his injuries. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... experiment of printing all the verse together, instead of scattering it according to the exigencies of the "make-up." Miss Monroe's Poetry, Contemporary Verse, and the other periodicals devoted exclusively to poetry, easily avoid this handicap of intruding prose. One turns their pages as he turns leaves of music until he finds some composition in accordance with his mood of the moment. The long poem or the drama creates an undertone of feeling in which the lyrical mood may easily come ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... especially for root crops, it will pay if possible to have the sub-soil plow follow the regular plow. This is, of course, for thoroughly rotted and fined manure; if coarse, it had better be put under at one plowing, making the best of a handicap. If you have arranged to have your garden plowed "by the job," be on hand to see that no shirking is done, by taking furrows wider than the plow can turn completely; it is possible to "cut and cover" so that the surface of a piece will ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... In the opinion of the Court reversing a judgment for the defendants, Justice Frankfurter said:[1174] "The Amendment nullifies sophisticated as well as simple minded modes of discrimination. It hits onerous procedural requirements which effectively handicap exercise of the franchise by the colored race although the abstract right to vote may remain unrestricted as ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... in its larger bearings. It comes near, however, to solving the problems as individuals of Adelle and her cousin, who save more in character than they lose in pocket. And it might possibly have come nearer still were it not for the handicap under which Mr. Herrick, for all his intelligence and conscience, has labored as an artist. That handicap is a certain stiffness on the plastic side of his imagination. His conceptions come to him, if ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... life I am to be hindered in my work by having to wrestle with this handicap! Just as if I had not been a clean man, but some vulgar ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... surfeited with nice young men. They wanted something dramatic, and Willy Cameron was essentially undramatic. Besides, it was quite plain that, with unconscious cruelty, his physical handicap ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... valuable assets within a short space of time for the purpose of prosecuting war. The masterful personality and self-confidence to which the phenomenal success that attended his creation of the wonderful New Armies was so largely due, was in some respects a handicap to him in the ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... very remiss in not coming to me sooner," said he, severely. "You start me on my investigation with a very serious handicap. It is inconceivable, for example, that this ivy and this lawn would have yielded nothing to ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... comparison, one must eliminate not only our failures but our plays of average merit. Even after the process of elimination has been made there lurks the danger of error, for when comparing the efforts of our playwrights with those of Paris one is making a comparison between men working under a heavy handicap and men unburdened by it. There is a whole world, or at least a whole half-world, open freely to the French writer into which the English dramatist is only permitted to crawl furtively. A large proportion ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... may mean crooked second teeth that will cause: (1) hundreds of dollars for straightening; (2) permanent business handicap because crooked teeth are disagreeable to others, because mastication is less perfect, and because a disfigured mouth means dis-arranged nerves; or perhaps (3) large dental bills because it is difficult to clean between cramped, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... race of sounds—a sort of handicap. The circular glow of the street-lamp became the social center of Benton. At last the mad race was ended. I think it was the cornet that won, with the clarinet a close second. The tuba, as I recollect it, complacently claimed third money, ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... "pudgy"—her own expression—red-haired and freckled-faced and snub-nosed. Her eyes redeemed much of this personal handicap, for they were big and blue as turquoises and as merry and innocent in expression as the eyes of a child. Also, the good humor which usually pervaded her sunny features led people to ignore their plainness. ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... Zeppelin was regarded by the British public as rather a picturesque personality. He appeared in the romantic guise of the inventor struggling against difficulties and disasters which would soon have overwhelmed a man of less resolute character. Even old age was included in his handicap, for he was verging on seventy when still arming against a ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... the race by fully five hundred yards. But instead of taking to the divide, the Indians bore down the valley, pursued and pursuers in plain sight of each other. For the first mile or so the loose horses were no handicap, showing clean heels and keeping clear of the whizzing ropes. But after the first wild dash, the remuda began to scatter, and the Indians gained on the cavalcade, coming fairly abreast and not over four ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... patented structure, and with the aid of keen and able counsel, hardly a patent exists that could not be invaded by such infringers. Such is the condition of our laws and practice that the patentee in seeking to enforce his rights labors under a terrible handicap. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... ways, to resist any change and to act as it has always acted. This conserves energy and works well so long as conditions remain the same. But if for any reason there comes a change, things are likely to go wrong. By just so far as things are different, an automatic habit becomes a handicap instead of a help. ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... was stronger; he could do more with one stroke than we could do with three; he was by nature a more valuable aid than we. We were forced through physical inferiority to abandon the choicest task to this young male competitor. Nature had given us a handicap at the start. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... key note to the old Negro's character and temperament. He was making a sort of privileged game with a sportive twist out of his handicap of blindness. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... this difficulty when I planned the present work, and entered upon it with no expectation that I should be able to embellish it with, almost, more than a very small number of hitherto unutilized notions. Moreover, I faced the additional handicap of having an audience of extraordinary antipathy to ideas before me, for I wrote it in war-time, with all foreign markets cut off, and so my only possible customers were Americans. Of their unprecedented dislike for novelty in the domain of the intellect I have often discoursed in the ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... one thing and education another, it might be all right to separate them. Culture of the head over a desk, and indoor gymnastics for the body, are not the ideal, and that many succeed in spite of the handicap is no proof of the excellence of the plan. Ships that go around the world accumulate many barnacles, but barnacles as a help to the navigator are ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... are progressing but slowly and some of them not at all. To take these feeble institutions, then, and to connect them with a poorer source of supply would be practically to destroy them—certainly seriously to handicap them. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... work, The Art of Fugue, Bach became totally blind, due no doubt, to the great strain he had always put upon his eyes, in not only writing his own music, but in copying out large works of the older masters. Notwithstanding this handicap he continued at work up to the very last. On the morning of the day on which he passed away, July 28, 1750, he suddenly regained his sight. A few hours later he became unconscious and ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... of their different temperaments—if they had been given any fair chance to live and grow as they wanted to. But here they were, mashed together in this stew-pot of domesticity, with all the most unlovely aspects of things forced continually upon their attention. Each was in some way a handicap and a torment to the other—a means which fate used to limit and crush and destroy the other; and as ever, they had in their hours of anguish no recourse save to sit down and reason it out together, and absolve ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... write in a form barely essayed before. Unlike so many of the English poets, who as public school boys were bred up to write verse, Mr. Yeats had to teach himself to write verse. Overcoming triumphantly this handicap, though losing by it years usually fullest of impulse to write, Mr. Yeats greatly attained, and for the ten years from 1889 to 1899 devoted himself to the writing of lyrics. For the past thirteen years he has been ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... mid-century. They were low-hulled, armored, steam vessels, with one or two revolving turrets. Although most cannonballs bounced from the armor, lack of speed made the "cheese box on a raft" vulnerable, and poor visibility through the turret slots was a serious handicap in battle. ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy

... I, laying hands on our host's kit of tools, at once went to work on the window. As Tom had said, it was a simple job, and though it was something of a handicap to work by lamplight, we went at it so vigorously that by nine o'clock we had completed our task—very much ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... seem that the Government could have done no less than accept the cooperation of these social organizations thankfully and done all in its power not to handicap them in their efforts. But this did not happen. On the contrary, from the beginning they were hampered as though they were dangerous revolutionary organizations. This policy became even more pronounced later on, when the success of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... let us be clear about it: this is a process which makes the excitement and experience and possible good of the individual woman outweigh in importance the safeguarding of the perpetual stream of man. A confusion of values has led women astray. Being a woman is a handicap. For the true carrying out of the duties of the wife and mother physical and mental quiet and sound nerves are needed. The industrial field has become the ideal place of action for the feminists, who persistently romanticize the independent commercial or industrial ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... legislators, but neither of these proved accusations give reason for thinking that either of these classes is inherently inferior to their more favourably-placed fellow-beings. We must always remember the tremendous handicap of being reared in the depressing surroundings of sloth and squalor. I have seen hundreds of poor whites—as white as any blond German could wish to be—who seemed utterly unfit for the complexities of civilised life, but I have also seen many of the children ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen

... doubt whether we could get through. With great care we might have a dog's chance, but no more. The weather conditions are awful, and our gear gets steadily more icy and difficult to manage. At the same time of course poor Titus is the greatest handicap. He keeps us waiting in the morning until we have partly lost the warming effect of our good breakfast, when the only wise policy is to be up and away at once; again at lunch. Poor chap! it is too pathetic to watch him; one cannot but try to ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... That is, after the age of 35, overweight is associated with an increasingly high death rate, and at middle life it becomes a real menace to health, either by reason of its mere presence as a physical handicap or because of the faulty living habits that are often ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... tied at the door. He had nothing to do but step in and drive off. Bruce had put his mare in at Billy Bender's across the bridge, intending to spend the evening there. He knew that this would handicap him seriously, but he strode down the road with a determined expression on his handsome face. Fifteen minutes later he drove past the store, his gray mare going at a sharp gait. The crowd in front of Plowden's ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... awaited him and a large space in the affairs of men if not of nations. Such confidence did he feel in himself at this fevered moment that he never doubted that eventually he would gain all this, even with the handicap of a good-looking but ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... it should contrive To keep its pinions on the flap, And by a tour de force survive This devastating handicap, Yet are there perils in the skies Whereon we blandly shut our eyes, But which are bound to be ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various

... like his face, so full of impulse and imagination. I believe he's a man who might go far and achieve much. Why should he handicap himself with an ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... that these pupils had to do their thinking in one language, and express themselves in another and alien one. It was a heavy handicap. I have by me "English as She is Taught"—a collection of American examinations made in the public schools of Brooklyn by one of the teachers, Miss Caroline B. Le Row. An extract or two from its pages will show that when the American ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... for a time to have of being taken seriously by the British Government, but had very nearly alienated the many thousands of women without the ranks that were wavering in the balance. This was their most serious mistake, for the chief handicap of the militants had been that too few women were disposed toward suffrage, or even interested. The history of the world shows that when any large body of people in a community want anything long enough and hard ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... grasping broad principles were alike remarkable. He wrote with ease, clearness, and precision; he knew what hard work meant and revelled in it. Unfortunately he was subject already to rheumatic gout, which was to make him acquainted with many watering-places, and was to handicap him gravely in later life. But at present nothing could check his ardour in his profession, and during his five years at Vienna he took every chance of studying foreign lands and of making acquaintance with the chief figures in the diplomatic world. He enjoyed talks with Baron Jellacic, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... women I have known, this woman who was here with me came nearest to being my friend. You know, what we call virtue in a woman is a tremendous handicap to any real friendliness with a man. Until she gets to an age when virtue and fidelity are no longer urgent practical concerns, a good woman, by the very definition of feminine goodness, isn't truly herself. Over a vast extent of her being she is RESERVED. She suppresses ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... The Broken-Link Handicap, because it was to smash Shackles; and the Handicappers piled on the weights, and the Fund gave eight hundred rupees, and the distance was "round the course for all horses." Shackles' owner said, "You can arrange the race with regard to Shackles only. So long as you don't bury him under weight-cloths, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... whom numerous men of his acquaintance had begun affectionately to handicap with the perilous nickname of "the ladies' man," he was thinking of no less than five ladies; two of one name and three of another. Flora Valcour and her French grandmother (as well as her brother of nineteen, already agog to be ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... from the natural isolation and lack of energy and social interest among country people, the lack of efficient leadership is the most serious handicap to organized sociability. Added to these is the want of a neighborhood centre both convenient and suitable. A community building, tasteful in architecture and equipped for community use, is a great desideratum, ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... enthusiasm is essential. Lawn tennis players never seem to me to be nearly so keen on their game as golfers. So many of them appear quite satisfied to remain at a fixed stage. They will certainly not get their handicap reduced unless there is an ardent desire to become better acquainted with the science of the game. A struggling golfer is never tired of learning talking about his pastime—often, I admit, to the annoyance of people who ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers

... been the easier thing to fight," he said. "There's nothing inevitable about a man,—any man. I'd have stood a chance at least, of beating him, even though he had a twenty-year handicap or so. But the other thing,—well, that was like the first bar of the Fifth Symphony, you know; Fate knocking at the door. Clear terror that is until one can get the courage to open the door and invite ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... of the National Nut News leaves us without an official organ. This is a serious handicap to our work. The stimulation of interest provided by the regular arrival of a publication containing the latest news and newest developments in our field, is a valuable aid in nut culture and association activities. The provision of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... doctor again; "he can be a confounded fool and work up by himself, a terrible handicap, going up for the examinations till the last year, when ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... very handsome, you know, boy," she said. "Almost too handsome. A man doesn't need good looks. They're almost a handicap. Look at your father." ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... word back with scorn, as if he was returning a blow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable, going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornly contested handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences as he ran, apparently ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... boy, it's over; forget it all. It wasn't meant to handicap you always. We'll have another deal now, please God, and start ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... rocking limp making the outline of his body a jerky up-and-down shadow. Again his speed and agility amazed the Terran. Loketh might be lame, but he had learned to adapt to his handicap very well. ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... society. Sooner or later every man who is worth his salt finds some task the doing of which arouses his ambition and becomes his particular contribution to the world. How bitterly will he then regret the heritage denied him or foolishly squandered, the handicap of quivering nerves, muscular flabbiness, wandering mind, that impedes its accomplishment! Determination and persistence may, indeed, use a frail physique for splendid service; such names as Darwin, Spencer, Prescott, remind us ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... in a few minutes. This he could have done had he been able to give Rocket free rein. But he had to hold back for the slower-gaited pony. Also, the girl had more of a start than he had at first realized, and she did her best to hold the handicap. Hitched to the light buckboard, her young broncos could have run a good part of the way to Stockchute. She was far out on the flat before she at last tired of the wild bumping over ruts and sagebrush roots, and pulled her horses down to ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... me much the same impression that one obtains from the spectacle of a man wire-walking in a sack or painting pictures with his toes—attempting, in short, any task under conditions of the greatest possible handicap. That certainly is what Miss V. SACKVILLE-WEST has been at pains to impose upon herself. With a straightforward, simple and interesting tale and some considerable gifts for reproducing character, she has deliberately sacrificed these ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various

... the year the buck thinks only of himself. During fully one-half the year the doe is burdened by the cares of motherhood, and the paramount duty of saving her fawns from their numerous enemies. This, I am quite sure, is the handicap which makes it so much easier to kill a doe in the autumn hunting season than to bag a fully antlered and sophisticated buck who has only ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... the West is just emerging from the slavery and degradation of ages, and she ought to know that that degradation was not the handicap of barbaric and undeveloped races, so far as the Aryan race is concerned, but a demoralization and degradation instituted by priests, in the name of religion, through which they have sought to rule the world, and so far as institutional religions are ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... the fight was on the side of the Diamond X outfit, even though it was outnumbered. For the Greaser sheep herders nearly doubled the force of the cowboys. But this, in itself, was not such a handicap as would ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker

... annual picnics we joined in the enjoyment of the children. I recall my surprise and chagrin at having challenged Mr. Davis to a footrace at Belmont one year, giving him distance as an age handicap, and finding that I had overestimated the advantage of ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... says Starlight. 'I vote we go, Dick. I never went to a hop with a price on my head before. A thousand pounds too! Quite a new sensation. It settles the question. And we'll enter Rainbow for the handicap. He ought to be good enough for anything ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... target. Realizing these limitations, the German submersibles are equipped with small torpedoes, which are generally fired at ranges not exceeding eight hundred to two thousand yards. The necessity of approaching the target so closely is, of course, a tremendous handicap in the general operation of these boats. In view of these facts, it is not surprising that the submersible should not have been able to sweep the capital ship from the seas, as was predicted by ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner

... his arrival in the country. The pity of it was that he possessed such qualities as should have lifted him far above the crowd. He had courage, he had resource. Upon occasion he was even brilliant. But ever the fatal handicap existed that had pulled him down. He lacked moral strength, the power to resist temptation. As long as he lived, this infirmity of character would dog his steps, would ruin his every enterprise. And Burke, whose stubborn force made ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... letter was read from Lord BEAVERBROOK, in which the great financier declared that, in arriving at the peerage at the age of thirty-seven, he had found his inability to read HOMER freely in the original no handicap or hindrance. He pointed out the interesting fact that Lord NORTHCLIFFE, who reached a similar elevation at the age of forty, had never composed any Greek iambics, though his literary style was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various

... bolts were obtained in San Francisco, the timbers to be attached to the OUTSIDE of the hull on putting the sections together, there being no room within. It requires little understanding of naval architecture to perceive that a great handicap was thus imposed on the little vessel. Yet Lieutenant Ives says, on the trial trip she was "found satisfactory"! By November 1st, the party was on board the schooner Monterey, bound for the head of the Gulf. Though the vessel ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... settle up details—mark-boats, handicap, and the like. . . . It's a wonder to me," said Cai reflectively, "how this regatta has run on, year after year. With Bussa for secretary, if you can ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... thereafter to be formed. If this was good law in 1819 it was good law in 1854, and the acceptance of a contrary theory put him at a serious disadvantage. His attitude on the liquor question also proved a handicap. He showed that the position of judge in interpreting the law was a very different thing from that of making the law by steering a party into power ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... increase in the negro population between 1900 and 1910 was 11.2 per cent. In the past fifty years the northern movement has transferred about 4 per cent of the entire negro population; and the movement has taken place in spite of the negro's economic handicap in the North. Within the same period Chicago increased her negro population 46.3 per cent and Columbus, Ohio, 55.3 per cent. This increase was wholly at the expense of the South, for the rural communities of the North are very sparsely populated with negroes and the increment ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott

... left them for a dash straight across the fields, taking anything that chanced to be in the way. In their impromptu races, which were frequent, Ethel almost always won; for racer though he was, Jim's sorrel found the two hundred and eight pounds he carried too much of a handicap. So the days went by, and though nothing was said about it, they talked to each other, and thought of ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... the first child lasts somewhat longer than with subsequent ones, and in consequence there is greater opportunity for the patient's family or friends to interfere with the management of the case, which never benefits a patient, and is sometimes a serious handicap. Then again, the cramped apartments, so common in these days, are poorly adapted to the treatment of sickness of any sort and should induce many obstetrical patients to choose the hospital. There are, besides, other features ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... put on more steam, and the third player went out on an infield fly. But the damage had been done, and those three runs at the very start loomed up as a serious handicap. ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... sigh, "I don't quite know what you mean, but I seem to have said something very wrong. The odds on a handicap are child's play to understand beside this ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard

... world; and especially America. One may be Chinese, Spaniard, even Indian—anything white or dirty white in this land, and demand decent treatment; but to be Negro or darkening toward it unmistakably means perpetual handicap ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... of it. But work like that takes a man's whole being. It takes more than mere eyes and hands—more than just mind. You must have the spirit right for it—all things must work together. It's not the sort of work to do under a handicap. God knows I'd start in if I could see my way—but neither the world nor myself would have anything to gain. Some one would have to be eyes for me—and so much more than eyes. It's all in how things look, dear—their appearance tells the story. An assistant could tell me what he ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... a real hot thing for the Manchester November Handicap, been kept for months," Ward said ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... go into any barber's shop, you can hear him at it, and he flourishes in suburban railway carriages; but he has a tremendous local reputation, having picked first and second in the handicap, and it would be a bold man who would venture to question the Oracle's knowledge of racing and of all matters ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... "My boy, you are by blood, by appearance, by education, and by tastes a white man. Now, why do you want to throw your life away amidst the poverty and ignorance, in the hopeless struggle, of the black people of the United States? Then look at the terrible handicap you are placing on yourself by going home and working as a Negro composer; you can never be able to get the hearing for your work which it might deserve. I doubt that even a white musician of recognized ability could ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... of inherited disease, whether he will be passionate or phlegmatic or imaginative or six-fingered or with a snub or aquiline nose. And not only that, but even before his birth the qualities that are not strictly and inevitably inherited are also beginning to be made. The artificial, the avoidable handicap also, may have commenced in the worrying, the overworking or the starving of his mother. In the first few months of his life very slight differences in treatment may have life-long consequences. No doubt ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... age limit as that assigned to recruits, or whether the cage was too severe a handicap, I don't know, but halfway up I somehow found myself marooned on an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various

... prowled to the southward, inspecting all likely hiding places on the way, with a strong chance that she herself would be detected and her purpose read before she discovered the fugitive. By taking the northern route this handicap would be avoided. They could make much better progress and not be seen until it was too late for ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis

... back to the castle. Never before had she so clearly realized what a handicap an adhesive family can ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... all live by our wits and these decline when not properly fed by our general physical organization. Prize fighters are not the longest lived people, nor are the professional athletes. Their calling requires extra building up which would be a positive handicap to the average man whose manner of life doesn't require this super-development. In other words, there are intemperate methods of exercising just as there are of eating and drinking. We may easily go too far. Again, we can sin just as greatly by ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... a kinship outside the circumstances of their early lives; the common lack of tools to work with; the privations and hardships to be endured and to overcome; the way ahead through an unblazed and trackless forest; every footstep over a stumbling block and each effort saddled with a handicap. But they got there, both of them, they got there, and mayhap somewhere beyond the stars the light of their eyes is shining down upon us even as, amid the thunders of a world tempest, we are not wholly forgetful ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... can tell you where they have gone, sir," said the young man, good-naturedly. "Some of them had an early dinner to-night, to go up to the billiard handicap at the Palm-Tree; I fancy Lord Rockminster was of the party, and that ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... except in a few of the western and south-western districts. As farmers they are much hampered by caste rules which forbid the employment of their women in the fields, and the prohibition of widow remarriage is a severe handicap. They are generally classed as poor cultivators, and this is usually, but by no means universally, a true description. The Dogra Rajputs of the low hills are good soldiers. They are numerous in Kangra and in the Jammu province ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... days, but now John's vigor is on the wane, and he has little left with which to gain a livelihood except his unusually contagious laugh, and a truly remarkable flow of words. "Old John" could give Walter Winchel a handicap of twenty words a minute and then beat him at his own game. His mouth is enormous and his voice deep and resonant. He can make a noise like a wood saw which he maintains for 2 or 3 minutes without apparent effort, the sound buzzing on and on from some mysterious depths ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... little for such a handicap. Taking a running start, his nimble legs carried him easily over and balanced neatly upon the end of the broad log. But he was no sooner started across than he saw a tall stranger coming from the other side. Thereupon Robin quickened his pace, and the stranger ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... yourself." Filmer waved his pipe aloft. "I'm glad you can take life this way, with the handicap of your trade, I don't quite see, by thunder, how your future parish is going to account for you, but so far as I'm concerned you ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... perceive the hesitating walk, the outstretched groping hand which, to my mind, is more pitiful than the story of the Cross, and inwardly they murmur, "How awful!" and sometimes they turn away. But they have never seen the real tragedy which lies behind the visible handicap. Only their imagination is stirred by the outward and visible side of the tragedy; never—or rather, very rarely—is it haunted by the realisation of the despair which is struggling to find peace, some solution of the meaning of it all, struggling to bring back some reasoned hope and gladness, some ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... it!" exclaimed Marcia. "Coal from the Orient, the lowest grade, when we should be exporting the best. Think of the handicap, the injustice put upon those pioneer Alaskans who fought tremendous obstacles to open the interior; who paved the ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... there was no element of surprise. It was a deliberate testing out of strength, physical and moral. For the first time in the war the British army stood upon something like even terms in manpower and in weight of metal, with, however, the immense handicap still resting upon it that it was the attacking force. The result settled forever the question of the fighting quality of the races. When the first day's fight was done, on a battle front of twenty miles the ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... have never been made to feel in any way that my race has been a handicap to me. Neither my pupils nor the teachers have ever shown prejudice; I do not doubt that it exists; I shall be in Heaven long before it has all disappeared, but I say it is with a colored teacher as it is with a white one. Her ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... recognition of the fact that knowledge is power, point to a time when utter ignorance even among the negroes will be a thing of the past. Prejudice is hard to fight against, and the colored man has often a considerable amount of handicap to overcome. But just as Mr. Sala found the typical negro, "standing in the mill pond longer than he oughter," a sad memento of the past, so the traveler can find many an intelligent and entertaining individual whose accent betrays his color even in the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... myself a little handicap in the matter of details," she said, "I know I can put everything else through as well as Gaspard;" whereupon she enveloped herself in a huge linen apron, tucked her hair into one of the chef's white caps, and attacked the ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... the ants might have seemed to us more promising. Their smallness of size was not necessarily too much of a handicap. They could have made poison their weapon for the subjugation of rivals. And in these orderly insects there are obviously a capacity for labor, and co-operative labor at that, which could carry them far. We all know that they have a marked genius: great gifts ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... many a fight before it. False ideals and faulty educational systems may handicap its progress as much as the forces that are avowedly arrayed against it. Its achievements may be arrested by the discord of factions breaking up its ranks. Conceivably it may have to face a severe conflict with a middle-class plutocracy. But whatever trials democracy has to undergo ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... beg that you will allow me to go with you! I have a good horse, and I shall not handicap you in battle. I only ask your protection in camp as your kinswoman and ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... appropriations for the Y. M. C. A. Tougaloo has a part of the college pastor's salary appropriated by the American Missionary Association. The others have no appropriation which pertains to the special religious work. This means that the religious work in these colleges has a decided financial handicap of which they are all very conscious. The special work is financed by subscriptions, funds raised by entertainments, and the donations of the students and teachers. This means a fluctuation from time to time depending upon the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... handicap to nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a thousand. But not to her. She puts up with it, and if she can't sleep one time—she should worry—she just sleeps some other time ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... his own feints and passes were known, while those of his antagonist had been strange and new, and he might well have even others. The stranger's giddiness did not alter the situation, for Rodriguez knew that his handicap was fair and even generous. He believed he was near his grave, and could see no spark of light to banish that dark belief; yet more chances than we can see often guard us on such occasions. The absence of Serafina saddened ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... sympathetic, fond of children and animals, wholesome and normal in your habits, without crankiness, and popular with both sexes. While there are many wives and widows possessed of these qualities, there seems to be some handicap to the spinster in the race of life who undertakes to arrive at middle age with all the womanly attributes. Almost invariably she drops some of them by the wayside. She becomes overorderly and fussy—so that association with ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... a new sight on the cuspidor, "I don't belong to any lodges whatsoever. They're a handicap. Because if the defendant is a Mason and you are a Elk he would rather have a brother Mason be juror than a strange Elk. So I don't belong to any of them and I don't go to church. I also have no convictions whatsoever about politics and have no favorites of any kind in the matter of authors ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... not the arbitrary ruling of an arbitrary government, is his dictator. To reconcile liberty and democracy, then, has been France's problem, as it has been that of America. She has faced the same problems against a handicap that America has not had—the handicap of a discontented nobility. And by sheer force ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... consumption have kept GDP growth above 4%. However, macroeconomic gains have only recently started to spur creation of a middle class and address Romania's widespread poverty, while corruption and red tape continue to handicap the business environment. Romanian government confidence in continuing disinflation was underscored by its currency revaluation in 2005, making 10,000 "old" lei equal 1 "new" leu. The economy grew at 6.4% in 2006, the strongest growth in the last decade. Romania joined the European Union ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... agreed Bud. "I'll soon have to cut down my handicap if you fellows keep on the way you're going," for in the tests of skill Bud had always discounted his own ability in order ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker

... as we are by such a host of witnesses, let us also lay aside every handicap and the sin which clings so closely to us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy which lay before him, patiently endured the cross, thinking ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... might be said truthfully of the artillery also, though the union artillerists, notwithstanding the handicap, did such effective work as would have ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... shall give you the race of your life for it," said Peter, entering into the same light spirited boasting. "I hear Mair and Todd and Semple are also entered, but with a decent handicap I won't mind these, even with ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... under the handicap of a lack of entente between him and the authorities to search New York for Kitty. He used the personal columns of the newspapers. He got in touch with taxicab drivers, ticket-sellers, postmen, and station guards. So far as possible he even employed the police through the medium ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... buried in the sand. George had one of his darts fast in a twinkling, and the fish flashed away, the tip indicating its movement. In a few minutes the hapless flathead was carrying no less than six darts, and as such a handicap was absurd it ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... delusions as to the task which lay before him. Lynch would be somewhat handicapped by the presence of the girl, especially if he continued to lead her horse. But he had a good hour's start, and once in the mountains the handicap would vanish. The chase was likely to be prolonged, particularly as Lynch knew every foot of the mountain trail and the country beyond, ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... riding skirt and tossed it aside—it was a heavy handicap to successful travel in the trees. Her boots and stockings followed the skirt, for the bare sole of the human foot does not slip upon dry or even wet bark as does the hard leather of a boot. She would ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... began "Sire," as he had learned was the form, and went on to remind His Majesty, first, of the hospital incident, which, having been forty years ago, might have slipped the royal memory. Then came the facts—his lost position, his daughter, the handicap of his wooden leg. It ended with a plea for reinstatement or, failing that, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... one. Now, in these days of competitive examinations, when every young fellow on entering life has to struggle to get his foot on the first rung of the ladder, and all his future prospects depend on his doing better than others, how inexpressibly silly it is for him to handicap himself needlessly by taking a narcotic which confuses his brain and impairs his memory, and which affords him no pleasure whatever. I treat you as a rational being, and appeal to your common sense, and speak as ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... will not be pleasing to the leaders of feminist thought is a matter of considerable interest. A similar statute in Illinois had been declared unconstitutional twenty years before, largely on the ground that to limit or prohibit the labor of woman would handicap her in her industrial competition with man, pointing out also that the Illinois Constitution itself prescribes and requires that the rights of the sexes should in all respects be identical, save only in so far as jury and militia service and political rights ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... speaking slowly, addressing himself more to his friends and the court stenographer than the crowd. Now he faced the crowd defiantly as he let his voice rise and cried: "This is no material world. Humanity is God trying to express Himself in terms of justice—with the sad handicap of time and space ever holding the Eternal Spirit in check. We ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... be. Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself. It is admitted that the presence of people who refuse to enter in the great handicap race for sixpenny pieces, is at once an insult and a disenchantment for those who do. A fine fellow (as we see so many) takes his determination, votes for the sixpences, and in the emphatic Americanism, "goes for" them.[4] And while such ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all the difference. It's all very well to talk about educating yourself and rising in the world at the same time, but it can't be done. There's a season for everything, and the best part of education must be over before you begin to fight for a position. Otherwise the handicap is too heavy." ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell



Words linked to "Handicap" :   incapacitate, softness, scratch, albatross, bandy legs, bias, impediment, disfavour, hindrance, vision defect, prolapse, descensus, bandy leg, disfavor, advantage, millstone, anorgasmia, astasia, straitjacket, tibia valga, bow leg, obstruction, obstacle, bowleg, bind, genu varum, disintegration, hearing disorder, hypesthesia, handicapper, penalty, wound, visual impairment, vantage, dysomia, hearing impairment



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